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“You are aware of the immense inequality in the dynamic of your relationship, aren’t you?”
“Oh, Catarina. You never fail to see right through me,” Magnus said with a grin. He looked at her over his coffee cup, eyes just this side of human and full of mischief. “You always were a worrier. There’s nothing to worry about this time, though. I am very much aware of the drastic differences between my new beau and me. But don’t you fret. I trust Alexander not to take advantage of all the power he holds over me.” Magnus sighed in an exaggeratedly dreamy fashion. Catarina just rolled her eyes.
“Magnus, this is serious. He’s just a boy.”
Magnus broke the act and gave his friend a much more subdued smile. His slitted eyes softened, manic glee calming to a more wearied amusement that hinted at just how long Magnus had lived. “I know, Catarina. Right now, there is nothing I know more.”
Catarina smiled and rested a hand over Magnus’ on the little diner table at Taki’s. She loved Magnus for many reasons, one of which was his ability to take a situation seriously when needed. Even if he would rather rake out his own eyeballs than do so.
“I just don’t-” Magnus cut himself off with a sigh, and, in that moment, Catarina saw the weight on his shoulders as if it were a physical thing. “How is it that mortality never fails to draw me in?”
She laughed a little and felt a knowing smile cross her face. “It’s not just you, Magnus. Mortality is like any good thing: the further it is from your reach...”
“The more you want it. In any way you can get,” Magnus finished. There was a moment of silence between the two, a slew of inexpressible thoughts crossing their minds. “How old is he?” Catarina asked gently, out of a morbid curiosity more than anything else.
“He turns 19 in a month.” Magnus wasn’t smiling. He stared into a middle distance just over Catarina’s shoulder, eyes unseeing. His focus returned with a snap, however, as a painfully loud laugh burst from Catarina. Magnus looked vaguely offended as she gasped in breath only to expel it, each laugh more forceful than the last.
“Oh, Magnus,” she forced out, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, “he’s just a baby!”
“Yes, I know! Why are you laughing!” Magnus was thoroughly confused. He had been under the distinct impression that something akin to a moment was occurring.
“He’s so young !” Magnus withdrew his hand from beneath Catarina’s and crossed his arms. His plan was to let her laugh it out while all of Taki’s gave them side long glances. It took longer than he appreciated.
“If you’re trying to make me feel like a pervert, it’s working.”
“Oh lord no, Magnus,” Catarina grinned and reached across the small table to give his now rigid shoulder a shove. “Don’t be so crass.”
“Then why are you laughing at me?” Magnus was perplexed. Catarina thought it was a good look on him. She grabbed his slowly relaxing arm and folded his hands in hers, vaguely noting how well the deep purple of his nails complimented her blue skin. Bastard probably did it on purpose, she thought.
“It’s just- Magnus, you sound so sad about it!” Magnus was starting to look hopelessly exasperated.
“Well, yes! He’s 18; I’m nearing 500! I’m more than 20 times his age; I’m taking advantage of his youth and naivety. I’m a monster and a cradle-robber, and I don’t want him to waste his time on someone who can’t follow him through life in a normal way. I’m wasting his time and his life, and I-”
“Shut up!” Catarina cried with another laugh, this time verging on hysterical. Magnus gave her a sour look as she shook her head at him, thinking. There was a moment of silence before Catarina asked, “So, you love his boy?”
Magnus opened his mouth to answer then closed it again. He avoided her gaze and mumbled out a “maybe.”
Catarina raised her eyebrows when Magnus looked back at her.
“Okay, fine!” Magnus threw his hands in the air, a blue spark escaping from a fingertip. “Yes! I love him! I love his stupid messy hair and his stupid nose and the way that nose crinkles right before he’s about to sneeze, and I love how his feet look when he’s walking barefoot on my carpet and how his hand looks when he’s holding mine and how he doesn’t know how to use the phrase ‘Netflix and Chill’ correctly but he still tries.
“I love how all of his black clothes are covered in white cat hair because he holds the Chairman so much. I love his forehead and his eyebrows and his ears and his right nostril, closely followed by his left nostril. And I love his eyes. But it’s not just the blue that I always say it is.” Magnus’ own eyes were unfocused but filled with an intensity Catarina hadn’t seen in him in a long, long time. Maybe not even that. It occurred to her, suddenly, that she had never seen Magnus like this.
“I love his eyes, because every time he looks at me, it’s like I just plucked the moon from the sky with my bare hands and gave it to him in a Tiffany box. Or whatever Shadowhunter equivalent of that there is. But- I die a little bit inside each time, because, deep down, I know I don’t deserve that look. I’ve done nothing in my centuries of life to deserve the way he looks at me. But I keep looking back, because he makes me feel like I’ve somehow earned the way he sees me. And sometimes I hate myself for being so selfish, but then Alec looks at me...and it all goes away.”
Catarina is silent for a beat, a little more than awed by Magnus’ passionate outburst, then, “You were being facetious earlier, but now I see that you were right.”
It was Magnus’ turn to raise an eyebrow. Catarina smiled.
“I should be giving the power difference talk to Alec. He really does have you wrapped around his little finger.”
Magnus huffed out a laugh and rested his head on his hand. Paired with the inextinguishable smile on his face, he looked for all the world like an enamoured schoolgirl.
“Frankly, Catarina? I never want to be anywhere else.”